The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-02-11
The hole Trnrh

The Whole Truth.
The New York Star has ably and con-
sistently supported the Administration.
and can py no means be- classed with the
spoilsmen" against whom the ignorant
or hypocriticaI have hun led the reproach
OF interested motives. Like the Star, we
have no word to say against the applica
ton Of " merit" tc the public service-we
do not oppose the principle upon
which the civil service reform Is sup
posed to rest But for his own good az
well as that of the rest of the nation, MIR
Gle veland would do well to heed the
warming embodied in the following edi
torial of his firm friend, the Star:
For supreme audacity in unfairness
commend us to Mr.. Blaine's pet organ.
Referring to the speeches of Democratic
Senators i'll Thursdays civil service de-
bate. it says:
Doubtless the Senators utterances
voice the sentiments of the Democratic
party at large, and the emphasis with
which they We're made indicates the
depths of bitterness and anguish in their
hungry and thirsty souls. Nevertheless,
the President has reason to feel deeply
hurt He has done his best to make
places for his party friends, violating the
spirit of the civil service law constantly
and ridiculously IL his followers don
sympathize with him, it must be because
they fail To realize the difficulties of his
great straddle."
Could there be any thing more mon
strously unfaI than for the organ of the
party whose members still retain three
- oil
.he President of breaking the Law which
he has religiously observed at the Expense
of his own political friends? Could there
be ANYTHING more un Just than to vilhfy
the President as violating constantly
and ridiculously the spirit of the system
he has regarded SO scrupulously "a to
even delay to cast down the barriers that
deprive we'll qualified Democrats of the
right of equal competition with Republi-
can incumbents? Those barriers are the
product of Republican administration of
the era of Dorman b. Eaton. They have
become odious, not only to Democratic
politicians and to the Democratic masses,
but to the commercial community and To-
fair minded men of all sorts of politics
and occupations. They have remained
in force until they have grown to be an
abOmiI alton, only because President
Clevelands high sense of obligation TO
the pledges and implied conditions of his
election and Inauguration caused him to
respect them and abide in the hope that
they would prove worthy of respect in
the end.
Now none are so anxious that these
buIwarks of fraud should be cast down
as the honest business men of indepen-
dent politics, who supported Cleveland
because he typIfied reform. They know
that the bigOted and iliIberal regulation
that excludes from the competition for
superior appointments all but members
of the old bound, fraud-sported
set, prevents good admin 'stration and
ruins legitimate commerce.. They de-
mand that their President shall burst the
cords that leave him bound hand and
foot in the power of his enemies IL Is
the voice of the commercial and indus
trial community, united with that of the
Democratic party, of which Grover
Cleveland has ever been a 10y al son, that
the President is about I" heed.
III there were needed any incentive to
the true reform of lIberaliZing the civil
service and freeing it from slavery to
the Republican rings, the President
might find it in the exceedingly mean
abuse to which he is subj cted, for hav-
ing gone to the extreme of liberation in
order to show that as chief executive of
all our citizens, he was bound to- do i'm
partial Justice to both political friends
and foes. But his party opponents mis-
take magnanImity for pusilanimity. De
frauders trade upon his chivalric regard
for duty, and make his impartiality the
cover for crime. Seeing this, as he now
must see it. he will rise up against the
fraud rings of the fraud party and smite
their retainers hin nd thigh.